An Overview of HCG Injections
A growing number of people are looking into weight-loss alternatives as we continue to come to terms with all the harmful effects of being obese.
From the many suggested alternatives, HCG injections are among the most talked-about solutions due to how effective they are when implemented properly.
Are you currently looking into HCG shots for weight reduction? Here is what you will need to know about this solution.
What’s HCG?
HCG stands for the Human Chorionic Gonadotropin and is a hormone tasked with the responsibility of keeping a healthy reproductive system, among other functions. The hormone is typically published at greater levels in elderly women.
In guys, HCG is produced in very minute quantities and works to boost the production of testosterone. In pregnant women, HCG is crucial to maintaining the health of the developing fetus in the uterus.
What Are HCG Injections?
Also called HCG shots, these are medicinal kinds of the HCG hormone and are often administered to deal with a variety of issues, ranging from fertility issues to weight loss.
HCG injections help you eliminate weight by mimicking the effect of HCG on elderly women. To ensure that the fetus growing at a pregnant woman doesn’t have problems with a lack of nutrition, HCG usually transforms the stored fats in the body into an energy source.
This usually means that HCG can specifically target adipose tissue and burn it to produce energy. To someone looking to lose weight, that’s all they could request. However, for your HCG to work, you ought to be at a caloric-deficit to activate the hormone to burn stored fat for energy.
While being in a caloric-deficit is sufficient to help you lose weight, often it leaves you tired due to a lack of energy. This makes it hard to adhere to such a strategy. Combining HCG injections using a low-carb diet, however, is more effective because it doesn’t just aim your fat cells but also makes it possible to manage the hunger pangs that include such a diet, thus making it easier to follow through with the plan. By a low-carb diet, we imply consuming as few as 500 calories in a day!
When done correctly, the HCG injections and diet plans were shown to help people lose between 1 and 2 pounds in a day.
HCG Injections Mechanism of Action
The HCG weight loss plan is generally executed in four stages. Here’s a detailed explanation of those stages:
- Stage 1
Also known as the loading phase, it involves eating at a little of excess to come up with your fat stores. This is normally the best stage for the majority of people due to a lack of caloric restrictions. However, this does not mean that you consume any and everything, rather, your diet should consist of healthy foods.
- Stage 2
Here is actually the most involved stage of the program and may last between 3 months and 4 weeks, depending on the suggestions of your specialist after evaluating you. Stage 2 is regarded as the most challenging because it’s when eating in a caloric-deficit comes in to play. Even though HCG injections will work towards suppressing your appetite so that you can follow along with the program, you will still experience hunger pangs.
Nevertheless, this is where the vast majority of weight loss happens.
- Phase 3
This is regarded as the stabilization stage of the HCG diet program. Here, you may no longer have HCG shots administered to you personally. Nevertheless, you are still going to have to track your weight knowingly.
- Stage 4
This is the maintenance phase of the program and, thus, entails ensuring that you stick to your weight. If you finish this stage successfully, there’s a very high likelihood you won’t revert to the habits that allow you to gain weight.
Also, Phase 4 does not have strict diet constraints like those from the 2nd and 3rd phases. Therefore, it is very important to exercise discipline to prevent compromising your efforts.
What are the Benefits of HCG Injections for Weight Loss?
Along with making the weight loss process more manageable, HCG shots also allow you benefits like:
- Maintaining Muscle
One of the side effects of ingesting in a caloric deficit is your body typically goes into a catabolic state. This usually means it will not just turn to your fat stores for energy but also at your muscle tissue. You may, therefore, start losing muscle tissue. When that occurs, your body no longer works at an optimal state because it affects your metabolic rate. This makes your weight loss journey even more arduous.
By helping sustain your muscle tissues, HCG injections ensure your weight reduction strategy remains powerful.
- Enhanced Metabolic Rate
Metabolism is the rate at which you burn the calories that you eat. The speed of metabolism, however, varies greatly among people depending on factors like age, genetics, and growth hormone levels. That is why some individuals barely put on weight no matter what they consume due to their high rate of metabolism. On the flip side, some individuals seem to put on weight just by smelling food, due to their low metabolic rate.
Unfortunately, most overweight individuals generally have a reduced metabolic rate. That is the reason why HCG shots are recommended for them since they enhance the human body’s metabolism. Furthermore, they operate to stabilize your metabolic rate so that it remains constant even after you’ve completed the program. This ensures that you’re better equipped to keep your new weight in the long run.
- Appetite Suppression
Considering that the vital part of any weight loss program is to consume a caloric-deficit diet, the individual is generally in a constant state of hunger, thus making the whole process torturous. HCG diets follow the same protocol. But they make the process more manageable by suppressing your appetite.
This enhances the chances of the program being successful.
- Enhancing Testosterone Manufacturing
HCG shots have been shown to raise natural testosterone levels within the body. With higher amounts of testosterone coursing through the body, the speed of muscle building and fat burning becomes improved. Furthermore, someone’s sex drive becomes fostered, thereby leading to a better quality of life.
- Affordability
Since you won’t have to use HCG injections indefinitely, your weight loss goals won’t grow to be a constant in your budget. As soon as you’ve finished the four phases, the remainder will all be preserved.
Are There Side Effects to Using HCG Injections?
Being that HCG injections aren’t FDA-approved, one might be forgiven for presuming they are not safe. But, HCG injections have been actively employed for weight reduction for over five decades. Throughout that period of time, countless individuals have praised this weight loss program because of its efficacy.
Nevertheless, the HCG program has been associated with side effects, such as:
- Nausea
- Headaches
- Fatigue
- Restlessness
- Depression
- Swelling of the hands and feet.
These side effects, but are correlated with being on a very low-calorie diet as opposed to the injections themselves.
How Long Should You Wait Before the Results Become Noticeable?
The biggest perk of using HCG injections for weight loss is in how quickly the outcomes will materialize. As stated before, it is possible to lose up to between 1 and 2 pounds per day. Nonetheless, how soon the outcomes become noticeable depends upon factors like discipline and overall health.
For the most part, yet, you can expect to see the results in as little as a few days or two weeks for some people.
How Is HCG Injected into the Body?
HCG is injected into your system subcutaneously. This means it is injected into an oily section of the human body. This not only helps to decrease the pain but also helps ensure that you can administer a healthy dose of the hormone. Some of the best places in the entire body to inject HCG, so, include the thighs, lower back, or even upper.
If you’ll be self-injecting, make sure that you first clean your hands and sterilize both the needle and the area that you will be injecting the hormone in to. Injecting into precisely the same place over and over again can lead to painful bruising. Therefore, make sure that you regularly switch between injection sites to prevent distress or a possible disease.
Last Thoughts
Losing weight is an arduous endeavor for anyone, and, so it’s crucial to recognize the problem of the path you will be embarking on. This will allow you to stick to the weight reduction program irrespective of how slow the outcomes seem to be coming along.
Together with a low-calorie diet, HCG injections have been shown to increase the rate of weight loss radically. They do so by not only suppress your appetite but also by increasing your energy levels, therefore you are better suited to endure the low-carb diet.
But, it’s advisable to consult a doctor in order that they can evaluate you to determine whether HCG injections are appropriate for you.
